Yves MakhoulDoes Nintendo's success worry anyone else?
December 14th 2008 03:05
Oh Wii Music, why did you have to sell so well?
Nintendo gave a much needed rebirth to the video game industry in the 80s when Atari crashed and burned. Judging by their public comments of late, they feel they've done it again recently with their new generation systems the DS and the Wii.
That's if you believe them when they say the industry was doomed to failure before they came along and saved it with a new casual direction. The video game industry, however, was growing by the billions with or without Nintendo giving it a kick in the backside.
In fact, it had surpassed the film industry in 2005 and was growing exponentially year after year. Granted, Nintendo did play a part in the sudden massive growth that has taken place of late, and in fact could single handedly have saved the industry from plummeting with the rest of the electronic sector in our current economic crisis.
BUT! What about the selfish hardcore gamer (aka you)?
Do you really want the mum's and dad's of the world to be the new main video game audience? Do you really want the players who only play once a month, yet buy all the latest casual games, to dictate what video game developers focus all their energies on? More importantly: did you really want Wii Music to have sold as well as it did? No, you didn't.
I mean, Cooking Mama and Brain Training are great, but they're not why we love video games.
We love video games for their complexity. Their new acrobatic moves, their latest nearly-impossible to pull off fatalities, their deep and sometimes engrossing stories and twisted plot-lines, their almost unimaginable inventories, their collectibles, their Easter egg surprises that only the most committed of players can find after spending nearly a hundred hours scouring the their forbidden lands.
This is why Nintendo's runaway success with both the Wii and DS is worrying. When Brain Training sells more than Zelda, you know a shift in developer focus is in our midst.
Nintendo might have reinvigorated the video game industry, but they may have also begun a fundamental shift away from what we all love.
Is there room for both styles of gaming in the future?
| 55 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
